REVIEW: “The Lone Survivor” Last night I watched a DVD of the “true life” story about a 4-man SEAL Team and their encounter with a large Taliban unit in Afghanistan. I am quite sure a huge portion of the American population watching the movie felt great pride in the SEAL Team and support the huge array of medals given out to those who preformed and supported that military operation. I realize it is a movie with a lot of Hollywood hype—but they say it was based on a true mission and I assume they put the “highlights” of the mission in the movie. We are led to believe because of the compassion of the SEALs in not killing the three Afgans—they themselves were killed. (Actually, the correct choice would have been to have tied them up and continued their mission. Someone would have come looking for them before they froze to death.) I watched the movies with a couple young men in their early 20s and of course they were into the heroics of the movie—but—I was watching with a more critical eye. My credentials in Special Operations are quite solid; not only in actually going on combat operations with Special Forces units, I designed and implemented a highly successful 2-man-stay-behind unit (DeathWatch) and then joined the top long range reconnaissance unit in Vietnam (MACV-SOG CCN) as a senior staff officer where I was involved in mission planning. So as I watched the movie, I could read between the lines and the mistakes made were huge and being brutally honest—it was a very poorly planned mission. First; I noticed the SEALs were briefing the staff—I hope they were doing a brief-back and had not actually planned the mission themselves. Second: There were no dedicated assets standing on alert for the team and what assets they did have were taken away from them. (When that occurred the team should have been brought back immediately!) Third: The team leader and his men did not memorize the terrain they were to perform their mission on and TWICE were trapped where they had to jump off cliffs—which was almost suicidal. ANY injury meant death and they lost their equipment in the process. Fourth: The commo man did not calibrate his radio BEFORE going on the mission and it was obvious he did not check the mountain terrain between him and his base for peaks that blocked his transmission and satellite links. When a cellphone works better than their $75,000 radio—someone did not calibrate or check! Fifth: Letting the Afgans go was a huge error. Sixth: Sending 27 highly trained Special Ops men in ONE helicopter as a rescue team—and flying BELOW the mountain peaks was just plain dumb. Seventh: Not having a forward air controller flying over the team was a huge planning error. Eighth: Waiting even after THREE check-in broadcasts were missed until the team contact the HQ—was just very poor leadership. (A team should have been launched after the 2nd commo check was missed—ACCORDING TO PLAN!) Ninth: The SEAL Team did not fight as a TEAM—but as individuals. Ten: They did not have a “Shit Happening Plan.” Eleven: MOVING after being detected gave the enemy the advantage. They should have found a defense position—hid and used their suppressed rifles to pick off the Taliban until they were rescued. Twelve: The rescue team seemed to be volunteers and not a trained rescue team. Thirteen: Even after they allowed the Afgans to leave—they still had the opportunity to kill their mission targets and failed. (The might have known the Taliban would come after them if they killed their targets or not.) Fourteen: The duty military in the OTC were junior NCOs—while there was a team on the ground. A senior decision-maker should have been alert and in the TOC at all times. Fifteen: Leaving the Afgans behind unprotected who helped the lone survivor—was just plain wrong. Considering the huge military budgets for training in the United States and the long history of successful recon techniques to learn from it seems as if the whole SEAL organization were not properly trained for actual combat. No one today can portray a better military figure than Mark Walberg—I am sure the movie did not follow the REAL action—but again, they must have used the BEST action from the mission for the movie and if what I saw was the BEST performance, there should have been a lot of Dereliction of Duty Letters handed out not medals. A small group of poorly trained mountain men with small arms and a few shoulder fired rocket launchers—killed more than 30 highly trained special operations men armed with the best weapon systems in the world. That was NOT a victory for us. It seems since Iraq we cannot win a fight unless we OVERWHELM the enemy—this is not good soldiering. Just my take—I’m quite sure there are those who will disagree with my take on this mission—but the errors in judgment and tactics does not bode well for those involved…remember these men are supposed to be the BEST we have.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 15:25:01 +0000
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